#sociologicalimagination

[socioraptor]

Unemployment

If you lose your job, you’re likely to think of that as a personal problem. It’s a personal problem that you don’t have a job. When you look around and see millions of other people going through the same thing for similar reasons. You then start to realize that personal private concern is actually a small part of a much larger issue. Personal issues are the result of social issues.

[themagician1999-blog]

Sociological Imagination

The first lesson of this course included a basic look at a variety of different concepts, theories and a brief history of sociology, its origins and evolutions, and many important people in the field of sociology and their accomplishments.

One of the main points of this lesson revolved around something called sociological imagination.  This is a way of looking at the world in a way that accounts for people as individuals and then as people groups and larger parts of society. C. Wright Mill says “the sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relationship between the two within society.”

An example of social imagination that I can see in life is that of exercise.  For example, you can see exercise as a way to keep healthy and keep your body strong and fit.  It can also be looked at as an addiction because as you exercise your body releases endorphins giving you a bit of “high” and people can become addicted to that feeling.  It can also be looked at as a social group, because groups of people can socialize in the context of exercise such as running groups, ladies that meet after exercise class, moms doing yoga, even a mother and son working with a personal trainer together.

Another example of social imagination would be coffee shops such as Starbucks.  Some people go to Starbucks solely to get coffee, to get caffeinated and energy for the day.  Other people go there to work, write, and use it as more of a lounge or café.  Still others go to socialize with other like-minded people.  Still another group go because it is trendy destination.

Lastly, my final example of social imagination is that of shooting sports world. Some people carry and learn to shoot guns to protect themselves, their families and their possessions.  While others carry guns solely to stick it to the man and by this I mean because it is an American right they do it to exercise that right.  If it wasn’t a right, they wouldn’t care as much.  You also have the group of people who just go and enjoy target shooting and punching holes in paper like myself and my shooting group; however, my group is quite different than a group that goes hunting to help the group get food for their families to eat.  A final shooting group is that of militaristic or anti-government group. It is a group of people who were or are in the military or who are just fearful of their government and have expansive collections of firearms solely designed to help overthrow the government should the time arrive.  

These have just been a few examples of sociological imaginations and a few different groups of people within those groups.  If you look closely enough, you can see sociological imagination everywhere.

Conley, Dalton. (2017). You may ask yourself. New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.

[dialymarie24-blog]

Sociological Imagination

In the first module we covered thinking sociologically.  One of the highlighted words in Chapter one were symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism is a micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motivations behind people’s actions.  I believe this is true we all know that are body language symbolizes the way we feel and how we act.  There are two different types of divisions in sociology: Microsociology and Macrosociology.  Microsociology is a branch of sociology that seeks  to understand local interactional contexts; its methods of choice are ethnographic, generally including participant observation and in-depth interviews.  Macrosociology is a branch of sociology generally concerned with social dynamics at a higher level of analysis- that is, across the breadth of a society. Sociology can be look from a micro-level and a macro-level.  Microsociologist are those who focus on face-to-face interactions with individuals and what they observe is what they gather.  Macrosociologist deal with a larger quantity like immmigration policy and gender norms.  They use  a large-scale experimentation. 

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Reference:

Conley, Dalton. 2017. The Sociological Imagination: An Introduction. You May Ask Yourself. Conley, Dalton. 2017. The Sociological Imagination: An Introduction. You May Ask Yourself. 

[liciavavs-blog]

Finally presented my Capstone research on ISIS! This is the information the mass media will not provide for you. Educate yourselves. You might be surprised what you will learn! "Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both. ...The Sociological Imagination: 'For that imagination is the capacity to shift from one perspective to another—from the political to the psychological; from examination of a single family to comparative assessment of the national budgets of the world; from the theological school to the military establishment; from considerations of an oil industry to studies of contemporary poetry. It is the capacity to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self--and to see the relations between the two.'” C. Wright Mills @edinborou #sociologydepartment #sociologicalimagination #researchismylife #cwrightmills

[niggaitstheuprising-blog]

The Sociological Imagination

Hopefully this post will be the first of many intellectual post to come. I just read an assigned article for my social problems class about the sociological imagination. I loved it so much that I made my mother read it just so that I could express my thoughts of it to someone. Its a lot to get into and to be honest I am not capable of writing everything I would like to express on this post yet. Unfortunately because of my life decisions I don't have the ability to fully process my thoughts and write it down. But by the reaction I got to reading that article I can tell that soon I will be able to. Theres just so much I want to talk about but for now im going to take it one step at a time. First things first, that article. For those of you like myself who are unfamiliar with the sociological imagination, its basically a way of viewing your own life, the life of others, the past, the future, and the problem and the solution. I say I am unfirmilir with it because I only read one article and I would be fooling myself and others if I said I fully understand it. The point is tostart understanding. What I loved so much about the article is that the whole idea reminds me of the way I already view everything. So much that I am considering changing my major to sociology. I've built my life until this point with the tools every man naturally uses. One of the things about this article is that it was clear in its standing that men have the most trouble grasping a hold of the sociological imagination. This is because of a multitude of reasons but mainly its the way we process life. I process life just like every other man the only difference is ive always had an understanding of why I process it to begin with. This is another point of the sociological imagination. The understanding of why we process everything so that we could better understand the purpose. There is a purpose to everything we do. I believe this purpose is man made. Which leads me to a shit ton of other things that I just don't have the time to get into right now. The point is even though our purpose was created by someone else years ago, without this purpose we sadly cannot succeed in modern life. Another point of the sociological imagination is that life is constantly changing and "men" tend to stick with the past rather then adapt as we all should to make the best of this forever changing life. For instance since Ive become an adult I tend to see the past as better then the present and the future. This is a result of my inability to adapt to the changes. The sociological imagination is the only thing that will help me understand the purpose of adapting to the changes. Once ive realized why I need to I can move on and succeed. Like I said earlier I am no different then anyone else. Though I may understand some things more that doesn't mean that I have the ability to process my understanding into action. This article introduced me to the sociological imagination. Now I feel motivated to mentally process everything according to the sociological imagination because I truly believe that the key to true happiness and acceptance of this life lies within that state of mind. Towards the end of the article the author takes the sociological imagination and breaks it down in to every day situations. The author also refers to famous psychologist, anthropologist, environmentalist, sociologist and people who have succeeded in impacting this world with their discoveries and creations and connects their success to their use of the sociological imagination. This view of life has the ability to allow EVERYONE to impact this world and the future. Since I can remember ive wanted to change the world someway somehow and make a name for myself and no matter how I do it, I intend on using the sociological imagination to make it happen.